Freakcidents

Publisher’s Description

Thirty disturbing — and perversely hilarious — poems of mutancy by Michael Arnzen, generously illustrated with the bizarre imaginings of GAK. If you dare to peek inside this twisted tent, you’ll encounter freaks, mutants, morons and sideshow splattractions never seen before by living eyes…

Praise…

WINNER of the 2005 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection from the Horror Writer’s Association.

“Welcome to the barbed brain of Michael Arnzen, where every axon is a steel trap, every dendrite a hid-den snare, every synapse a cul de sac, and every myelin sheath an elixir enabling us to find affirmation in ugliness and to smile whenever the dog eats God’s homework.” — James Morrow, author of The Eternal Footman

“I imagine that if the British poet Ted Hughes had written the Garbage Pail Kids those cards might have read very much like Michael Arnzen’s Freakcidents. These poems are cruel and sad at the same time. These figures appall us the way those kids in school appalled us: if we possessed a modicum of decency at that age (always debatable), we didn’t know whether to laugh at them or cry for them. They wore their scars on their sleeves. They saved us from being embarrassed by our own wounds.” — Steve Rasnic Tem, author of The Man in the Ceiling

“The human scab, the boy with a face full of eyes, the self-eating man — proof again that Arnzen’s outrageous imagination is mainlining our culture’s nightsweats to engender a beautiful aesthetics of monstrosity. These poems are maniacally energized, transgressively funny, and perpetually haunted by the saddest awareness of all: freaks are us, only inside out.” — Lance Olsen, author of Hideous Beauties

“Mike Arnzen’s Freakcidents is a wickedly gleeful kaleidoscope of hideous horrors. And yet amidst all this colorful carnage, one will find a heart — beating with sympathy, even affection, for the bizarre characters that make up this amazing poetry collection.” — Mark McLaughlin, author of Once Upon a Slime

“Michael A. Arnzen, award winning poet and fiction writer, can always be counted on to approach the grotesque and the visceral with wit and, often, compassion….but be prepared: Arnzen doesn’t hold back, and his imagery is both visceral and explicit. Freakcidents is smart, nasty, and very well-written – horror poetry doesn’t get much better than this!” – Tim Pratt, Star*Line

“Arnzen seems to have a penchant for creating bizarre characters we can care about despite their grotesque appearance or inhuman behavior. He also has a talent for reflecting in these creatures something all too familiar to us: ourselves. From the sword swallowing circus freak with throat cancer to the boy trapped in a test tube who wants nothing more than a little privacy, we recognize those things about us (the dissatisfaction of our own appearance, the loneliness of being labeled an outcast, etc.) that we struggle with in our daily lives and, in our weaker moments, would pay too high a price to change.” — Gary West, The Dream People

“If you are not a fan of poetry, then you are missing a new transcending voice in horror…shit, literature, okay?” – Mike Purfield, B-Independent Zine

“…fun, tight, thought provoking and challenging with each ooze and scream. This volume should very much be looked upon as the watershed moment for modern horror poetry. Buy it.” — Lurid Lit

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Press & Praise

Audiovile. While I suppose technically it’s an audio book, it’s much more than that. One part performance art, one part beat poetry, one part music, the whole thing comes together to create a CD that is both hilarious and disturbing at the same time. For anyone who has ever heard it said that horror is not an art form, Arnzen fires back with the proverbial “up yours,” making himself out to be a twisted Ginsberg for the horror fan, Kerouac for the demented, and a Dylan Thomas for those of us with a dark sense of humor.